Public Lives and Private Illnesses

Today's New York Times has an article on the impact on presidential campaigns of public disclosures of health issues affecting candidates and their family members. John Edwards' open discussion of his wife's cancer (and other recent examples) are contrasted with earlier presidents and presidential contenders who "dissembled...lied...covered up or simply kept their mouths shut."

In weighing the age-old question of how to confront serious illness [says The Times], presidential candidates and their spouses are increasingly opting to come clean. Many are tossing aside traditional notions that have suggested that public airings of such conditions might sink a campaign or derail a presidency.

Some say the shift reflects the greater freedom candidates have in modern times to portray themselves as more human and vulnerable. Others say the public confessions are driven by a desire to control the political message before reporters do. With Internet bloggers, cable news channels and around-the-clock news cycles, keeping such conditions safely buried in the closet is close to impossible, they say.

One thing the article does not address is the impact of such public illnesses on the health awareness and behavior of the general population. That's the topic of a new book recently added to the BC Libraries collections: When Illness Goes Public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine.

The book, by Barron Lerner, professor of medicine and public health at Columbia, looks at 13 cases, from Lou Gehrig to John Foster Dulles to Steve McQueen to Lorenzo Odone (subject of the movie Lorenzo's Oil).

Here's an excerpt from the book's blurb: "While celebrity illnesses have helped to inform patients about treatment options, ethical controversies, and scientific proof, the stories surrounding these illnesses have also assumed mythical characteristics that may be misleading."

Another, older (1952), book along the same lines in the BC collections is Medical Biographies: The Ailments of Thirty-Three Famous Persons.